Field
The disclosed embodiments relate to techniques for improving memory usage in software programs. More specifically, the disclosed embodiments relate to techniques for providing visualizations of memory layouts in software programs executing in virtual machines.
Related Art
Developers of software programs are typically unaware of how data structures and/or objects in the software programs are laid out in memory. As a result, the developers may create objects and/or data structures that result in sub-optimal execution and/or memory consumption of the software programs. For example, a developer may declare fields in a software program without considering the alignment requirements of the fields, resulting in a greater amount of padding in the software program than if the fields were declared in a different order and/or using different types. Because the padding represents memory that does not contain useful data, the padding may unnecessarily increase the memory consumption of the software program and reduce the cache utilization of a processor on which the software program executes.
Consequently, the development and execution of software programs may be facilitated by mechanisms for improving the knowledge and management of memory consumption in the software programs.